Three Pilot projects in Steel Sector launched under the National Green Hydrogen Mission

As part of the National Green Hydrogen Mission, the Union Government has sanctioned three pilot projects for the use of Hydrogen in steel production. Earlier the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy had issued guidelines for the Implementation of Pilot projects in the Steel Sector under this Mission.

The objective is to identify advanced technologies for utilizing green hydrogen in steelmaking, through pilot projects. These pilot projects can demonstrate safe and secure operations of green hydrogen-based steel-making processes, validating technical feasibility and performance, and evaluating their economic viability thereby leading to low-carbon iron and steel production.

Accordingly, the proposals were invited for three components (i) a Pilot project to produce DRI using 100 % Hydrogen using a vertical shaft, (ii) the Use of Hydrogen in a Blast Furnace to reduce coal/ coke consumption, and (iii) Injection of Hydrogen in vertical shaft based DRI making unit.

Based on the evaluations of the proposals received, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has sanctioned a total of three pilot projects in the steel sector, (a) Matrix Gas and Renewables Ltd (Consortium members: Gensol Engineering Ltd, Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar, Metsol AB, Sweden) with pilot plant capacity 50 ton-per-day (TPD), (b) Simplex Castings Ltd (Consortium member: BSBK Pvt. Ltd., Ten Eight Investment, IIT Bhilai) with pilot plant capacity 40 TPD and  (c) Steel Authority of India Ltd (Ranchi) with plant capacity 3200 TPD.

The total financial support made available will be Rs. 347 Crore from the Government of India. These pilot projects are likely to be commissioned in the next 3 years, paving the way to the scaleup of such technologies in India.